"And here am I, with another sailor," said the Old Sailor attentively, nodding familiarly at his new shipmate in the cage, who, making much too light of the calamity which had befallen them, winked saucily in return.
"And you are very thirsty."
"And I am very thirsty," said the Old Sailor, smacking his parched lips.
"And here, out of your reach, is the water," indicating the well, "you want to drink."
"And here, out of my reach, is the water I want to drink," said the Old Sailor, growing more parched.
"Now, then," said Dan, "you can't get at the water with your beak--I mean your mouth--and you can't reach it with your claws--I mean your hands. Now what do you do?"
"Ah what do I do?" repeated the Old Sailor, not seeing his way out of the difficulty.
"Why," exclaimed Dan enthusiastically, "you get a rope--or, if you haven't got one, you make one out of some strong grass, or out of strips of your clothes; and you get a bucket--or you make one out of a cocoanut," in his enthusiasm Dan took the cocoanut for granted; and the Old Sailor accepted its existence on the rock with most implicit faith--"and you attach the cocoanut to the rope, and you lower it into the water, and draw it up full. Here you are, doing it."
And, obedient to Dan's signal, the bullfinches lowered their tiny bucket into the well, and drew it up full, and dipped their beaks into the water, as if they were shipwrecked bullfinches, and were nearly dead with raging thirst.
A thoughtful expression stole into the Old Sailor's face.